


all this and heaven too

by Biscay



Category: The Bletchley Circle
Genre: Bletchley era, F/F, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-07-18 15:14:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7320391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Biscay/pseuds/Biscay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Millie and language.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all this and heaven too

“Little girls should be seen and not heard” is her grandfather's mantra. It is unfair in ways six-year-old Millie struggles to articulate – smart raps across her knuckles, on the back of her legs when she is disrespectful, impertinent, audacious – long words as weaponised as the cane to make her retreat into silence.

Like all weapons, words can be turned on their users, and Millie gathers an arsenal from her parents' library. She cloisters herself away in her bedroom and precociously makes her way through Kipling, Dumas, and Hardy. She behaves herself, does her best not to speak out of turn, but when she's not allowed to play with the boys, forced instead to help serve afternoon tea, Millie knows precisely which words to say to make sure she's never treated like an ornamental doll again. 

(The hiding she gets, her grandfather washing her mouth out with soap, is worth it.)

Through public school whispers, Millie hears about clubs and societies for people _like her_ ; underground meeting places hidden within bastions of art and culture and beauty. She dreams of Paris and Berlin, of feeling like she belongs, and throws herself into the study of languages without hesitation. 

She cannot get enough; she relishes learning words for concepts, for emotions that do not exist in clumsy English – _weltschmerz, écoeurant, fernweh_ – Millie went so long without words to describe herself that each new way of thinking, of seeing the world, redoubles her desire to see landscapes far beyond the narrow-minded island of Great Britain. 

At university she studies linguistic theory, learns how the structure of a language affects its speaker's worldview. Millie loves the rebelliousness of rejecting English language and convention in a single turn. Each new language, living and dead, is connection to her people; she reads Sappho's poems in Ancient Greek and the yearning transcends space and time to pull at Millie's young heart, _la douleur exquise_ comforting and painful all at once.

Millie cannot wait to conquer the world, to find the secret cafés of Paris, the _Berlins lesbische Frauen_ , but dark clouds are gathering around Europe. Translation work gives her a moderate income - allows her to meet so many people from so many places; some are _like her_ , and she learns how to tell, loves this language that is not (cannot be) taught or spoken – but the storm breaks and suddenly Berlin is no longer safe.

Without Hitler, Millie supposes, there would be no Bletchley Park. The chance to help fight back was never part of her plan, but she hears (always in whispers) about what is happening to her people in Germany, and Millie arrives at Bletchley with fire in her belly. Her language skills which were useful before are now needed, necessary, required – things Millie hasn't felt in a long time. Women are not permitted to take arms against fascism but, just as when she was a child, words are Millie's weapon.

She is bounced from hut to hut for a time, and ends up under the watchful eye of one Jean McBrien. The girls – women – come and go, and Millie tries not to get attached, but then Susan arrives and her mind is like nothing Millie has ever seen; brilliant in a way Millie can never hope to be, but complementary in almost every way. 

Where Millie is full of anger, adjectives and metaphors, Susan is cold, calculating and analytic. Susan, naturally, doesn't like Millie to begin with, but it doesn't matter because between them they can do anything. There are days and nights where it doesn't feel like it, but when they're working together to crack a piece of code – Susan breaking it down to a pattern, Millie on hand to translate (bits of art and culture sometimes handy; public school education never wasted), answering questions before Susan needs to ask – the feeling is, even with Millie's extensive vocabulary, difficult to describe. She knows it would make Susan blush (quite likes the idea of that, actually), but the closest comparison Millie can think of is sex. The build-up, the choreography as they work together, the indescribable high when they finally reach their answer. In the afterglow of solving a puzzle Susan is flushed pink, trying not to look too pleased with herself, and Millie can barely believe they can do this to one another without so much as touching. 

* * *

Already fluent in German, Italian, and a smattering of other European languages, Millie is tasked with learning Japanese shortly after her arrival. It's not too difficult, all things considered; the sentence structure is almost boringly regular, the phonetic alphabets are no more complex than Greek or Cyrillic, but the Kanji characters take more time. For all her rebelliousness, Millie is a studious learner and traces out each character by lamplight, stroke by stroke, committing the flow and shape to memory. 

One evening, when she returns from a numbing eleven-hour shift, she finds Susan flicking through her notes and flashcards in their room. Millie considers that she probably shouldn't leave her notes lying around – as if there aren't enough Careless Talk Costs Lives posters around BP – but she trusts Susan more than anything.

“Are you interested in learning Japanese?” Millie asks, lighting a cigarette. 

“No-” Susan says, flustered at getting caught, “I can't do languages like you.”

“I bet you could do anything you put your mind to, Susan.”

Susan shakes her head. “Patterns, puzzles – that's my forte.”

“Shame,” Millie says, giving her a sly grin, “I think you'd make quite the cunning linguist.”

Millie can't quite tell if Susan catches the innuendo – the tips of her ears go red, which Millie counts as a win. 

“You can test me if you'd like. Who knows what useful nuggets of information your formidable brain will pick up?”

“Fine,” Susan agrees, “if it will keep you out of trouble.”

Susan is a huge help, it turns out – she's right that languages aren't her specialist area, but her lateral thinking is incredibly good at coming up with ways to remember characters, spotting patterns between similar groups that seem obvious after Susan has pointed them out. 

Jean seems to approve of their studies, and as they huddle together sharing the room's single desk, Millie supposes that Susan _is_ keeping her out of trouble.

* * *

The clouds of war sit like a veil over the Bletchley huts, little islands adrift in the Buckinghamshire countryside. A shared cigarette, plucked from Susan's mouth, easily turns into a taste of her lips, and in the dark of their room Millie's fingers and tongue stroke letters and characters from a dozen languages across Susan's skin.

“ _Je'taime_ ,” Millie sighs after, partly because it makes Susan blush, partly because telling Susan in French, Latin, Greek, is diversionary, showing off her polyglotism, the words more impressive than the sentiment behind them. Susan is too clever to be deceived, though. She understands what it means when Millie asks her, when the storms pass and the veil eventually lifts, to come with her to see the world. 

It shouldn't hurt as much as it does when their silence is sealed with a stamp by the Official Secrets Act, the drums of the Bombe machines finally stop their rotations, and Susan meets Timothy. Millie always knew that her pleas for Susan to never be ordinary were begging disguised as cocky flirtation, but it doesn't soften the blow. Susan has found her happiness – she insists it's happiness, at least, Millie isn't so sure – and Millie has enough money from her work at Bletchley to chart a course for the far-off lands of Asia, Africa and beyond.

She sends postcards to Susan – sometimes she has to focus to write in English after weeks in Athens, a month in Naples – and selfishly hopes they are read with a fraction of the longing with which they are written. Details are embellished (a linguist's prerogative), but the _love, Millie_ is always entirely genuine. 

After a while she stops adding kisses (juvenile, ridiculous). 

Eventually she stops sending the cards altogether.


End file.
